During the debate, which was aired on national television on Sunday, incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and contender Prabowo Subianto were given approximately two hours to present their views on four subjects: energy, food, infrastructure and the environment.

However, they did not get around to talking about energy because of how the General Elections Commission (KPU) set up the format of the debate, the questions of which were prepared by seven panelists of various professional and educational backgrounds.

Irwandy Arif, a mining professor at the Bandung Institute of Technology, was one of the panelists for the second debate. He told The Jakarta Post on Monday that only six of 18 prepared questions were answered by the candidates, as per the debate’s rules.

“Too many questions were to be answered in a short amount of time [...] We prepared 18 questions, but only six could be answered. […] Therefore, it wasn’t enough to cover all of the topics,” he said.

Irwandy further said that the panelists acknowledged that there would be a limited amount of time, so they had asked the KPU to allow them to answer the questions that went unasked and publicize them.

“[We] need another forum [to cover all matters],” he added.

The energy-related questions that were left out on Sunday night were on a five-year strategy on energy security, speeding up new and renewable energy development, energy subsidies, natural resource scarcity, the downstreaming of natural resources and the socio-environmental impact that gold and copper miner PT Freeport
Indonesia has.

Fabby Tumiwa, the executive director of local energy watchdog Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), acknowledged that both candidates failed to address crucial energy issues, such as the depletion of fossil energy resources.

“The more principal [matters] weren’t discussed. [...] There are at least three issues that need to be discussed: climate change, the growing competitive price in renewable energy and the transition from liquid-based to electricity-based energy,” he said in a discussion held by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Monday.

Data from the IESR show that the number of oil and gas exploration blocks in Indonesia declined to 91 blocks in 2018 from 187 blocks in 2013. Meanwhile, oil reserves fell to 3.15 billion barrels in 2018 from 4.3 billion barrels in 2009.

CSIS senior economist Mari Elka Pangestu said the two presidential candidates needed to present a long-term energy strategy for transitioning from dirty energy to cleaner sources. The strategy, however, should also be presented by the private sector, she said.

“We are facing a different situation from a decade ago. We can’t have an energy strategy that depends on coal […] the transition needs to be done immediately as results are only seen after five to 10 years,” said Mari, a former trade minister.

Biodiesel policy was the only energy issue discussed by both candidates, but the topic received little air time and their answers underwhelmed energy experts, according to regional energy think tank Centre for Energy Research Asia (CERA).

CERA director Adhityani Putri told the Post on Monday that the discussion on biodiesel during the debate was worrisome as neither the incumbent nor the challenger addressed the negative impact of scaling up the percentage of biofuel used in diesel from 20 to 100 percent, as promised by Jokowi.

“All these points were made without addressing the inherent land-use change and socioeconomic issues that come with scaling up palm oil-based biodiesel production. And there is no commitment to environmental and social safeguards,” she said in a text message.

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